


Who Will Know?

by PencilWolf15



Category: Godzilla - All Media Types, シン・ゴジラ | Godzilla Resurgence (2016)
Genre: Gen, He's the only canon human dude here, Monster - Freeform, Shin's blood can infect people because I say so, Slow Transformation, This fic is pretty self-indulgent, everyone else here are just OCs, just a person to fill the space, or at least, painful transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PencilWolf15/pseuds/PencilWolf15
Summary: A few days after Gojira goes into hibernation after expending its energy, and long after everyone was supposed to have evacuated, a filthy man wrapped in a filthy blanket is seen wandering the streets. After he is brought in, and given a separate room due to the radiation he’s giving off, he reveals a side of the giant beast nobody had thought about. How does he know about it? Well…
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	Who Will Know?

The director was bewildered, absolutely bewildered. He was usually very collected, but now he was bewildered. Here, in the room beyond the observation glass, sitting on the provided cot, obscured by his disgusting blanket, was the most impossible thing. The entire city was evacuated, and has been for days now! There should have been nobody within kilometers, much less anyone who could have survived the onslaught that beast unleashed. But here he is, all the same…

To say the last few days had been chaotic and nerve wracking were an understatement. That gigantic creature who just grew larger and larger had thrown a wrench into absolutely everything. Whatever was thrown at it either did nothing, or did something and then eventually did nothing. And now this thing, this… Gojira, was apparently hibernating standing up, after angrily destroying a large swath of Tokyo. That building sized abomination has thrown everything under the sun at them, and even more besides. At this point, what else could there be out there on this bitch of an earth that could surprise them?

And then a hunched and shambling figure was spotted wandering the ruined streets. Barefoot, covered head to toe with thick grime, swathed in a large and equally filthy blanket, was a man. A human man.

The city was devoid of as much life as possible, so there was nobody on hand that could tend to any medical need this man clearly had, let alone any equipment to do so. But still, they couldn’t just leave him out there. He was quickly escorted inside the police station used as a ramshackle base, but set under quarantine due to… well, everything that had been happening out there. The radiation that was sloughing off of him was cause for concern, but with such a skeleton crew, they could do nothing about it other than separate him from the rest.

They had put him in the interrogation room, both for observation, and the fact that it was the best room available for quarantine. He had been given a cot, fresh clothes, food, water, and the means to wash up, as it was the best they could do. But he did not touch them. Even when given the chance to swap out the blanket he held onto so tightly, he refused.

And so he sat, unmoving from his spot, food uneaten, and clothes untouched. No one could blame him though; from what they could gather, this man has just been through hell. He was likely in much more shock than the rest of them, and that’s saying something.

<“Director Ningen,”> The soft voice beside him startled him out of his stupor. A young woman was standing next to him in the room. Her expression wasn’t extreme, but it was enough to get her point across

<“R-right, right,”> The man stuttered in reply, <“You didn’t call me over to stare. Uhm, what do we have on him?”>

<“He was found wandering the streets of what used to be the Shinagawa district. He responds more to English than Japanese, leading me to believe he might be either a tourist or someone who just moved here from an English speaking country. Likely American. We have not heard him speak, so we have no confirmation about that, nor his name.”>

<“... That’s it?”>

<“That’s it,”>

Ningen held his gaze at her until he turned back to the window. There hadn’t been so much as a twitch.

<“Is he ok?”>

<“Obviously not, but in regards to what you mean, I doubt he would have died within the hour it took you to get here,”>

The man hummed in acknowledgement, and turned his attention to the console just slightly to his left.

<“Saito,”> A man not far behind him responded and stepped to his side, <“Do you have the recorder?”>

Said man stuck his hand into his jacket and pulled out a small device.

<“Good,”> Ningen slid into the chair, <“Start it up,”> He flipped the console switch on, and leaned into the microphone,

“Sir, can you hear me?” The director spoke in English to the man on the cot, who did not respond, “Sir, we understand that you may be hesitant to speak, as you just survived a disastrous occurrence, but we need you to speak to us. We have questions,”

There was a moment of silence, before the man stirred a bit, but nothing more.

<“Is this microphone fault--?”>

“Am I in trouble?” The man asked, cutting the director off, who couldn’t help but yelp slightly at his voice.

He allowed himself a moment to breathe before replying, “No. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m in a police interrogation room, and you say you have questions for me. What else am I supposed to believe?” He had a slight lisp

“You’re only in there because it is the best available room for quarantine. We have no means to scan for or treat radiation or other sicknesses. So for the time being, you were put in here, for your safety and ours.”

“That makes sense enough,”

“Good. Now, could you please state your name and age?”

“... Gabriel Hawes. 38,”

“You are American, yes?”

“Yes,”

“Tourist?”

“... Yes and no, I guess. I’m here because I was having an extramarital affair over the Internet, and came here to meet her under the guise of a business trip,”

“Oh, uh…” He had to admit, that wasn’t something he was expecting. He stuttered a bit, while Gabriel continued.

“After everything that’s happened, I can’t remember her name anymore,” He shifted to look up at the ceiling, filthy hair falling over his shoulders and back, “I have so many holes in my memory now, I’m shocked I even remembered that I was having an affair,”

Ningen took in a deep breath, steadying himself, before continuing, “The order to evacuate all of Tokyo was given more than a week ago,” 

“Has it been a week? Strange…”

“Why are you still here Mr. Hawes? How are you still alive?”

The man paused for a beat, before sighing and letting his head down again, “We met up, her and I, at the airport. She took me back to her place, where we got drunk. We likely had sex, seeing as I woke up the next day naked in her bed. I can’t remember the exact order of events, but I found myself dressed and in the kitchen, either cooking breakfast for us both or just finished eating. The radio was on, something that sounded drastic and important, but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

“Then, there’s screaming outside, and here my memory blurs together. I was outside suddenly, I saw some… tan-ish thing wandering the street in front of me, and a flash of red before the sensation of burning. Like boiling water poured over your skin. The next, uh, coherent memory is limping in dark, empty streets I don’t recognize. I’m holding my arm, the right one, which was covered in burns and what I have to assume was blood. In fact, my right arm and right leg were covered in the blood and burns. I was bleeding myself, but it was likely not all of it was my own. The skin had either split open from the blisters, or I managed to hurt myself, but either way I was bleeding. I must have lost a lot of blood, since I don’t remember anything until it was light out again.”

“If events line up correctly, that was when the… premature form of Gojira first made landfall in the Kamata district,” Ningen stated, “in the middle of its evacuation. You should have gone with everyone,”

Gabriel was silent.

“A-a-and it was weeks before the current form of Godzilla came on land,”

“With all due respect… sir. Sorry I didn’t catch who you were,”

“Oh, Hiroki Ningen, the director of this small relief team. The only one that was granted to stay,”

“Relief team, eh? It’s a bit lacking,”

“Our supplies weren’t meant to hold out this long, especially with resupply being on hold, but since the powers above decided it’s highly likely for there to be casualties, we were allowed to stay. To be a safety net, no matter how feeble.”

“Is that so? Then why was it so shocking to see me?”

“Well, nobody was actually expecting for anyone to still be alive. There was no way anyone survived that firestorm, but just in case… I mean, you survived, against all our predictions, who is to say there aren’t others?”

“Yeah, I get that. Well, Director Ningen,” He horribly butchered the pronunciation, “I remember so little from all that calamity. I’m sure I would’ve evacuated with everyone else, but since I’m still here I must’ve been prevented somehow. And it wasn’t that I spent all this time just aimlessly wandering, I actually did go get help. I went to a hospital in one of the other districts, but don’t ask me which one.”

“Noted,” Ningen added flatly

“And there I spent a while just looking up at the ceiling, dissociating. I recall almost perfectly the pattern of the ceiling tiles, and the way the light above me flickered. And that I had gotten really sick. But that’s mostly it, except there was… something wrong with me. It wasn’t the burns nor the infection, it was something else, something new. There was… a presence in my mind, like ghostly…” it couldn’t be seen from where they were, but there was the shuffling movements to suggest he was wiggling his hands in frustration, “whispering? I’m not sure if that’s the right term; I couldn’t make out anything that was being said, if anything was being said at all. There also was a strange sense of floating, disconnection, like I was just a pilot to my own body. You ever watch Gundam, or Evangelion, Director?”

“I have not, but I am aware enough about both to understand what you mean.”

“Yeah, it was kinda like that,”

“Do you know what was causing it? What you’re describing sounds like uh,” he wracked his head for the English term for it, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”

“... It’s not PTSD. Well, part of it might’ve been, but that’s not what I’m referring to. What’s wrong with me is more than a simple infection. It’s way worse,”

“How so?”

“At some point in my stay I had a… dream? Vision? God I don’t know how to describe it, it was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had. Dreams, no matter the subject, feel a certain way. You don’t really tend to notice until you don’t experience it. No, this didn’t feel anything like a dream.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Bear with me, Director. I was aware of being ‘conscious,’ if you will, and I knew I wasn’t awake. But I couldn’t see anything, and I damn near almost couldn’t feel anything. I don’t know what I was feeling, but it was something; some sort of sensation. But that’s not the weirdest part. There was a voice, clear as anyone talking to you from arm’s length away. Except it… wasn’t a voice? It was like a feeling? Only it was more than a feeling? God it’s so hard to describe.”

“What did it say?”

Gabriel held his silence a few seconds longer than he normally did, “‘Who are you?’” His voice was dripping with fear, like a talented voice actor, “‘How are you here? Please don’t hurt me.’ It was my own voice, or rather, my thought-voice, the voice I use or… hear when I think.”

“I’m still not sure what you mean,”

“Yeah it’s hard to get across,”

“No, what you mean by adding this to your explanation,”

“Oh. Just wait, I’ll get there. It continued to talk to me, though I can’t really remember what else it said. Those first sentiments are the best I remember, and a ‘You’re just as lost as me.’” He leaned forward more, letting out a large sigh, “Suddenly there was something in front of me, except it was there the entire time? And I was suddenly just now aware of it, I guess? It was a face, the face of a monster, the same monster that is standing stock still in the rubble outside.”

“Gojira??”

“If that’s the name you gave it, yes. Its expression was that of confusion and fear, except it actually wasn’t any different than the version that’s outside right now. The best I can figure is that fear and confusion was what it was feeling, so my brain added the human way of expressing those emotions onto a face that cannot emote that way…”

Gabriel trailed off into silence and held it, the quiet becoming deafening. It took a few minutes, as Ningen didn’t know what to say, but he eventually opened his mouth with hope to say anything at all, to break the silence.

“Wait,” the young woman by the director’s side interjected, deciding she would be that one. Her voice was incredulous, “I just had a thought. Are you implying that the superheated blood of Gojira infected you, and thus you became attuned to the beast?”

“Yes,”

She blinked, not expecting such a blunt answer, “H-how do you know it wasn’t just a fever dream?”

“... I was in the hospital for a time longer after that. My dreams went back to normal, except there was a feeling that something was getting closer. And a new development happened: a sense of pain was crawling into me, yet it was slow and slight. It didn’t make sense, my fever was slowly going down, a rising sense of pain was undue. Then a panic started, and I found myself out in the streets again. The sense of pain had spiked, it now hurt to walk and move. I just recall feeling the pain for hours, then finding it was night, and I was out on the roof of a building.

“There it was, in the distance, the creature with the face from my dream. It was moving towards me, yet I wasn’t compelled to get down and run away, just to sta--”

“Was it looking for you?” the Director interrupted

“What?” He turned his head slightly, but not enough for others to see his face.

“It doesn’t seem that farfetched to assume that Gojira was looking for you,”

“I… I don’t know. I only recall hurting, not so much psychic sharing of emotional drives. I wasn’t given much of a chance to think about it anyway, as while I was standing there, staring, there was a sharp, digging pain in my back, and then it exploded into body-wide agony. Heh, ‘exploded’ is apt, as there were two explosions that went off in the distance. And then…” he went silent for a time again, starting to get the ire of the others, “Tell me, Director, what do you think those roars Gojira makes are?”

“W-what? What do you mean?”

“Do you think they’re made out of anger?”

“I… don’t know what they are. I just thought of them as roars, nothing else. From what you’re implying, they are not?”

“... They’re screams of pain,”

Director Ningen’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I cried out from the pain in my back, and shortly after I started, I heard its screeching roar echoing. It was mutual pain for the both of us, thus it was mutual screaming. ‘Go away! Leave me alone!’ I heard in my mind while my body started getting uncomfortably warm. It let loose smoke from its mouth, then fire, then that purple beam into the sky.”

“Ok,” the woman started again, now angry, “I get it, you feel what that thing feels, fine. But you are not going to convince me that it was just acting on the defensive. After it shot down the Americans from the sky it burned a large swath of the city around it! What reason did it have to do that other than hatred and malice??”

“... Hatred? Malice? No, there isn’t a hateful bone in its body. Did you see the way it was acting when it did that? It cut off the beams directed at the sky, content to just leave it at that, but the energy kept building and building. It hurt, so bad, I should know. It had to go somewhere. It was the first time it had used that ability, so it didn’t know how to control it. It was bewilderment that the energy kept coming, and fear that it would use up too much. That was the motivation, not anger.”

“Then-then,” she was lost for words, “What about the buildings it destroyed? You said you were on a rooftop with it coming right for you. You were in direct danger!”

“True. A building did almost come down right on me, but I managed to get out of the way. The falling building only took out half of the one I was standing on. Didn’t go without damage, though; got knocked out cold by a piece of rubble. Only…” he paused, a potent sense of gloom creeping into his voice, “when I woke up, it was light, the fires were out, and the dried bloodstain I was laying in was too big for me to have survived. Something echoed in my mind: ‘You can’t die.’”

“Another dream?” Ningen asked

“No, the building falling down and me waking up was sudden. I only remembered it as a memory of sorts.”

“Ah. So is this where we are now?”

“What do you mean?”

“With the events lining up, is there much of your story left?”

“N-no, I guess not. But I wasn’t found by your men right after I woke up, there were a few days until then.”

“Can you recall how long?”

“At least three days, but it had to be more than that.”

“What happened during then? Did you meet anyone?”

“I don’t think so, I don’t remember. Those few days were just loaded with dissociation. I woke up hungry, but it was such a different kind of hunger I don’t think there’s a way to properly describe it, only that it wasn’t for food. I was compelled to find and stay in certain areas, where people were long gone. It filled my hunger, but not for long. I had to keep moving, find more of these areas.”

“Judging by everything, that had to be--”

“Radiation. I know,” He stopped, expecting a response, and continued when he didn’t get one, “I was constantly tired. Constantly hungry and tired, so whenever I found one of these areas, I would fall asleep. I was scared of sleeping, but my body was so weak I couldn’t stay awake. I had more of these dream-visions, but it was feeling more and more normal, adopting more and more of a normal dream feeling. I supposed I was getting used to it. There Gojira would talk to me, or we would just share feelings back and forth. It wasn’t comforting, it was horrifying. Gojira feels the same, but neither of us have a say in the matter.”

Ningen had to pick his jaw up from the floor before continuing, “What… did you learn? About Gojira?”

Gabriel was still for a long moment, but by now everyone was used to it and waited, “It knows it shouldn’t exist, it’s known ever since it absorbed awareness.” His words made confusion ripple across the ones listening in, “It’s in constant agony, both physically and mentally, so it’s afraid of more pain. It is both in a state of living and death, and not like you’d expect such a state to be. It’s basically a corpse that is not allowed to die, not even to be in a zombie-like state, so of course it’s in agony, and of course it wishes to not be this way. It would cry if it had the ability to. It’s so, so hard to share a mind with someone like this, especially if you’re not able to comfort them.”

“No? Aren’t you able to comfort Gojira even a little bit?”

“No. It knows I wish it comfort, but that’s not enough. The fact I exist at all is part of their agony, no amount of comforting will help.”

“But it told you you couldn’t die, yes? Doesn’t that signify an emotional connection where you would be able to comfort?”

“That wasn’t said out of comfort, but out of a glum realization,”

<"Oh for the love of-- Why didn’t you-- > er, why didn’t you say that before??” Gabriel didn’t respond to Ningen’s angry words. He took a moment to cool his anger before continuing, “Is there anything doctors can do? You’re infected by bits of Gojira, yes? If we were to remove these bits, you’d be able to recover, right?”

The man was silent for a while again, but this time the silence was tense, “You can’t fix this. It was the point of no return that day when Gojira splashed blood on me. Besides, having a mental connection to him is only a small part of it,” He stood up slowly, reaching a height taller than anyone in the room would’ve guessed at.

Ningen leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. He looked over to the woman, who had taken a step back, <“Was he this tall when you brought him in?”> he whispered to her

For the first time in a while, she was shocked to the point of stuttering, <“I-I don’t know, we-we uh, h-he was hunched over--”> She gasped suddenly and stepped even farther back, others in the room doing the same. Ningen looked back at the window, and his face paled.

Gabriel was now facing them, the blanket now in his hand instead of around him. He was giving them the full view of his body, and the state he was in was appalling. Tall, thin, and unsettlingly boney, bloody hospital gown torn in several places and hanging by threads. He was covered head to toe in a layer of grime, but even with that one could tell his skin wasn’t a healthy pink, but a sickly grey. Large and thick patches of scabs were scattered about his being, with the area around them ringed with peeling skin. His nose was deformed, skewed and broken. The tips of his fingers bulged at something pushing from within, with some of his fingernails peeling off or even gone. His eyes, oh his eyes, bloodshot with the iris color fading away, were horrible to look at. No, not just appalling: monstrous.

“Look,” He spoke at last, bringing a hand up to his head. He grabbed a clump of hair, and with the slightest tug, it came loose. He displayed the clump for a few seconds before he dropped it, and brought the hand to his other hand’s wrist, pinching a strand of loose skin. There was gagging as he stripped off the entire slab of skin that encased his hand like it was just a glove, revealing more of the scabs, and fingers tipped in claws. He dropped the skin as well.

“You think I can come back from this?” A lot of his human teeth were missing, leaving either holes or clumps of needle-like teeth, “I am worse than sick, I’m dead; dead but not allowed to die. Try as you might, you can’t cure a corpse of death. Despite anything anyone does to try and stop it, I will continue to change. Every day I am more attuned to him, every day I feel more and more pain, and eventually I will feel it just as much as he does. What the end result is for me, I don’t know, but what I do or don’t know doesn’t matter…” he trailed off, holding a morose expression.

Nobody could find anything to say, only stutter and stammer in shock. But Ningen found, to his own surprise, that he had continued to speak anyway.

“Are-are there more? Like you? If you are speaking truth, which you clear-clearly are, then it’s highly likely for others to be < infect-- > er, infected with Gojira’s blood.”

Gabriel held his silence and sorrowful gaze for only a short few seconds, “I’m the only one still here. Yes, others were infected, but they weren’t many, and they died quickly from their wounds. They’re the lucky ones.” He looked away for a moment before looking back at them, “I’d recommend burning everything in this room, it’s likely none of it is safe anymore. And,” he sighed, “even though it’s moot in the end, thank you for trying to save me. It’ll likely be the last time I’ll ever be treated like I’m human.”

There was no stammering this time, there was nothing more anyone could’ve said anyway.  
________

<“Yaguchi, sir,”> He heard someone call his name. He lifted his head from his work to address them. It was one of the many people on his ramshackle team, but he was so tired he couldn’t remember their name, <“This was sent to you,”> He held out a folder of papers and a flash drive.

He didn’t take them, <“What is it?”>

<“It’s the interview transcript of that survivor they found,”>

Now Yaguchi snatched it, accidentally sending the flash drive tumbling to the ground. He began flipping through it, only scanning the words, <“Was anything found?”>

The man had leaned down and picked up the fallen drive, <“I don’t know, I didn’t read it. It’s for your eyes. Bu--”>

<“I want to see him,”>

<“Sir, he’s gone,”> Now he had his leader’s attention, <“The man who gave this to me said that he had managed to get out, and now they can’t find any trace of him. Said that the video footage of it is here,”> he wiggled the flash drive.

They snatched away an unattended laptop and plugged in the drive, waiting rather impatiently for the computer to read the device. The moment it did they opened it and looked through the files. There were only three things on it: an audio file labeled “Interview Audio”, a Read-Me file labeled “Transcript”, and a video file labeled “Evidence.” Seeing as it was their only option they clicked it open.

The video footage was grainy and halting, but that’s to be expected with security cameras. It showed an interrogation room converted into a shelter room, with a figure sitting on the cot in the corner. They couldn’t make out his features all that well, but what they could make out he looked to be in really bad shape. He sat there for a few seconds before standing up, and the footage corrupted. Static and interference dominated the screen for about ten seconds, before the video returned. The person was gone now, only now the tattered remains of the garb they were wearing was on the floor.

It cut to the outside, and the person was seen casually strolling out into the night, butt naked of course.

<“Rewind a bit,”> a voice came from behind them, startling both Yaguchi and the other. They didn’t notice they had attracted a crowd, <“I thought I saw something,”>

Yaguchi went frame by frame until they said stop. It was a full shot of the person, where a small something was seen between their legs.

There was a slight snickering rolling through the crowd.

<“No, look. This is their backside. It seems a bit strange, doesn’t it?”> The laughter stopped immediately, and everyone stared harder.

And they saw it

The extension of the tailbone was the immediately obvious thing, but there was another thing they hadn’t noticed the first time around. The outside light of the station showed that their back was discolored, with lumps of dark something in three orderly rows. Sure, there were tons of these dark lumps all over them, but the way these ones were organized was a little bit too familiar.

Yaguchi leaned back in his chair, gobsmacked, <“I… should probably read that transcript,”>

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it's obvious that the bracketed text is them speaking Japanese.
> 
> And I'm not 100% happy with the illustration, but I've spent so long on it I don't want to look at it any longer


End file.
